Prize Recipient

Peter Blair

Background:

Peter Blair is a rising junior at Duke University, where he is pursing a BS degree in Physics. He is an honors student, having been named to the Deans List for the past four semesters. As a Mellon Mays Undergraduate Fellow, Peter is conducting research with Professor Arlie O. Petters in the field of gravitational lensing. His research this summer with Dr. Petters took him to the 10th annual Conference of African-American Researchers in the Mathematical Sciences (CAARMS), which was held at the Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory and the Mathematical Sciences Research Institute (MSRI). At CAARMS, he presented a poster entitled, "Modeling Flux Ratio Anomalies due to a Chang- Refsdal Lens," for which he was awarded an honorable mention from among a competitive group of graduate-student posters. This upcoming academic year, Peter will become the first African-American to serve as President of the Duke chapter of the Society of Physics Students (SPS): one of his major goals is to foster undergraduate research and participation at professional conferences. Peter's long-term aspiration is to become a leading research physicist at a university, where he hopes to serve as a mentor and role model for minority students. His extracurricular interests include peer tutoring, church-related activities, tennis and music.